Wolf Pack freshman D.J. Fenner will room on the road with senior Deonte Burton this season.

On the surface, that doesn’t mean much. Beneath the surface, it means everything.

The Wolf Pack, which opens the season Friday when it hosts old Big West rival Pacific, has a history of partnering the team’s best freshman with its best senior each season, an unofficial passing of the torch. The current star to the future star. Burton to Fenner.

“I love the kid,” Burton said. “I give him advice every chance I get. He’s a competitor. In practice, he’s saying, ‘I’ve got Deonte! I’ve got Deonte!’ I can’t get rid of him. He’s saying, ‘I’m going to stop you. I’m going to stop you.’ He’s talking trash, and I like it. It will make him better. He’s gonna be a great player.”

Nevada freshman guard D.J. Fenner passes the ball during an exhibition game against Montana Tech on Monday. (Tom Smedes/RGJ)

The pressing question is how much can the 6-foot-6, 205-pound Fenner give the Wolf Pack this season?

Nevada is loaded in the backcourt, which would make playing time sparse for most freshmen, but coach David Carter promised to find him minutes. Carter has raved about Fenner’s motor, his physicality, his aggressiveness, his athleticism, hit basketball intellect and his ability to score.

While Carter opted to play the veterans over his talented freshmen at points last season, the fifth-year coach promised he won’t make that same mistake again. Fenner’s going to get his minutes.

“I learned my lesson last year,” Carter said. “If you have a talented kid who’s pretty good, you have to play him. You can’t sit back and wait. You have to find places to play your best players. If that means some nights you have to go small, you have to go small. I have to do a good job of making sure we have the best players on the floor and the best players are playing every night.”

The son of Derrick Fenner, who played nine seasons in the NFL as a running back, D.J. said he moved 8-10 times in his childhood, never really finding a permanent home until last year. As a high school freshman, Fenner played in Seattle. As a sophomore, he played in Washington, D.C. He went back to Seattle as a junior and could have moved again his senior season, but he stuck in Seattle.

“Being able to stay grounded in Seattle between my junior and senior year, that was really the first time I was able to stay in the same city from one year to the next since seventh grade,” Fenner said.

As a senior, Fenner averaged 27.3 points per game was named Washington’s player of the year by the Seattle Times. He scored fewer than 20 points just three times and exceeded 30 nine times.

His high school coach, Michael Kelly, said Fenner is “wired to score,” although that won’t be his role this season. Instead, Fenner will go from high school scoring star to college role player, a move he’s embraced. In Monday’s exhibition win over Montana Tech, Fenner tallied eight points and four assists.

“I’m not really focused on scoring,” Fenner said. “That’s what I did last year. I really want to focus on the defensive end this year and rebounding and do whatever I can so we can win this season.”

Fenner picked Nevada over Gonzaga, Washington State and Oregon, in part because of a visit by Zac Claus. The Nevada assistant thought Fenner was at a big tournament in Philadelphia, but he was instead at a small camp in Reading, Pa., about 65 miles away. After getting word, Claus drove to Reading.

“I wasn’t playing well and I wanted to go home, but I saw him and he gave me that little smirk and I was like, ‘OK. It’s time to go,’” Fenner said. “I made the All-Star Game, and I knew I wanted to go to Nevada.”

In Reno, Fenner has quickly bonded with Burton. On Fenner’s recruiting visit to Nevada, Burton challenged him to a video-game match of NBA 2K, with both “talking smack to each other.” The friendly trash talking has extended to the practice court, with Fenner soaking up as much from Burton as he can.

“He has a lot of knowledge and wisdom to shed on me,” Fenner said. “I don’t want to be stubborn. I want to take as much as I can from him. We’re talking about somebody who could have gone to the NBA last year and is most likely going this year. I want to learn as much as I can from him while he’s here.”

After all, once Burton is gone, Fenner very well could be next up in the long line of Wolf Pack stars.

Columnist Chris Murray provides insight on Northern Nevada sports. Contact him at cmurray@rgj.com or follow him on Twitter @MurrayRGJ.